
The Loveless Man's Valentine
"Poetry is elegy at heart",
the laureate revealed. Its words are nets
to capture, then at last let go, to start
the cycle up again with our regrets.
Writing fussy stuff in polished diction,
poems were like equations, I was taught,
turning yearning into civil fiction,
ways of wooing, letting reasoned thought
rape the passions, make the furnace cool,
a strategy of cold seduction. Look!
The rhymed result has only made a fool,
hoisted stiffly up on beauty's hook.
I swing from reasoned sense, its borderline
with madness, strung by you, my Valentine.
Royal Rhodes
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Royal Rhodes would be pleased to
hear them